From the crude beginnings of cinema produced at Thomas Edison's Black Maria studio to the computer-generated effects created
at George Lucas's Industrial Light + Magic, the Library of Congress holds the most comprehensive collections of American film
and television materials in the world. The Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (MBRS) houses more than
half a million moving image items, including feature films, shorts, serials, newsreels, cartoons, documentaries, educational
films, television programs, and commercials.

In the 1901 film What Happened on Twenty-Third Street, New York City [moving image], a couple is walking down a sidewalk when the woman steps on a grate and the escaping air blows her ankle length dress up
to her knees. Fifty years later and thirty blocks to the north, another couple walked over a subway grate in a movie. With
The Seven Year Itch (1955, FGB 0012-0023), the image of Marilyn Monroe's thighs exposed under her billowing skirt entered American popular culture.
The Library's motion picture and broadcasting collections provide the opportunity to document not only how women's roles and
their depictions have changed throughout the past hundred years, but also how much has remained the same.

Depictions of Women

Women have been represented as every conceivable stereotype in the movies: waif, vamp, girl-next-door, femme fatale, Madonna,
whore, shopgirl, career woman, gold digger, wisecracking girlfriend, dumb blonde, self-sacrificing mother, and perfect wife.
Although individual film archives may have the collections of particular filmmakers, studios, or performers, the Library's
strength lies in the span of its holdings. The development of almost any subject or theme can be traced here. With enough
time and effort, a researcher could follow the evolution of a number of character types: from America's Sweetheart, Mary Pickford,
to Drew Barrymore's Cinderella character in Ever After (1998) [catalog record]; from Clara Bow's “It” girl to Elizabeth Taylor's party girl in Butterfield 8 (1960) [catalog record]; from Theda Bara's vamp to Sharon Stone's man-eater in Basic Instinct (1992, DAA 2526); or from the perils of Pearl White to the travails of Sigourney Weaver in Alien (1979) [catalog record].

Methods of Acquisition

The Library of Congress began collecting motion pictures in 1893 when an Edison kinetoscope was deposited for copyright. Although
there was no provision in the copyright law for motion pictures until 1912, early film producers printed their movies on paper
rolls and sent them to the Library of Congress as still photographs. In 1912, the copyright law established motion pictures
as a distinct form, but the Library chose not to house the flammable nitrate film in use at the time and returned all works
to the claimants, retaining only descriptive printed material relating to the films. This practice changed in 1942, when,
recognizing the importance of motion pictures and the need to preserve them as a historical record, the Library requested
the return of selected works and, to fill the gap between 1912 and 1942, pursued gift collections and donations from studios,
institutions, and private collectors.

In 1949 the Library began collecting television programs. The Library's television archive comprises an eclectic group offering
a broad but uneven view of television broadcasting history. The industry's failure to make kinescope recordings of much early
live television, and the division's practice of selectively retaining copyright deposits because of the initial underestimation
of the medium's significance, have resulted in scant holdings of certain popular series and full runs of others. Beginning
in 1966, the Library's policy was changed to keep all network documentaries and telefeatures and large samplings of entertainment
series and other types of programming. The process has continued to expand in recent years as even more copyright deposits
have been selected for the collections, as gifts of television programs not registered for copyright protection have been
encouraged, and as funds have been made available for purchases.

Paper Documentation

The division also has custody of printed descriptive materials received as a part of the copyright registration process. These
copyright descriptions can include continuities of the dialogue and action of a film taken directly from the screen, pressbooks,
plot synopses, or credit lists. Such written material is especially valuable when the original film or television program
is no longer extant. The division also holds motion picture advertising and other paper ephemera.